


Walt's life is a nightmare

by Jessehall



Category: Breaking Bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-15
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-01 15:01:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2777489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessehall/pseuds/Jessehall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JESSE GETS SHOT!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Walt's life is a nightmare

It's supposed to be an easy job.

Or at least as easy as it's supposed to be in this business, Walt surmises.

Tuco had sent them to go and collect some money from "a junkie bastard who owed him for two meth sales" at a warehouse. Walt wasn't particularly accepting of it at first: after all, what'd he tell Skyler? "Honey, I'm going to go and manhandle money from a junkie, I'll be home by eleven"? Besides, tonight was poker night. Hank and Marie would come over to play until two a.m. Hank would tell anecdotes about work at the DEA while Walt would try not to sweat through his shirt, positive that he'd be figured out, and before the end of the night he and Jesse would be bunkmates in a cellblock at Los Lunas.

But Walt's not Walt, so to say. You couldn't be a drug dealer if you weren't an adept liar, he'd realized early on in the game. Hell, he'd even created a new persona for himself: Heisenburg. Heisenburg could lie with ease, so it was Heisenburg who strolled out of the house, telling Skyler that "I'll be home soon, honey, I just have to go and visit a friend of mine." She, to his relief, had accepted his statement blindly, and off he went.

He makes it to the warehouse five minutes early, checking his watch impatiently.

Jesse shows up at the warehouse five minutes late, which isn't unexpected. He looks like he'd been sleeping or something, like he'd barely gotten his clothes on before getting into the car. "Where've you been?" Walt demands of his younger partner, who shrugs. "You were supposed to be here five minutes ago."

"Sorry, Dad," he snaps, rubbing his eyes with one hand and still managing to glare at Walt. "You can install the GPS on me in the morning like I'm some fucking show dog..."

"Like it or not," he growls, "you have to be here to do the transaction with me."

Jesse laughs. "The fucking crystal king of New Mexico needs his loyal servant to accompany him?"

"At least this way you'll earn your fifty/fifty split," he retorts weakly, pushing open the door of the warehouse. Damnit, this was like some cheesy horror film that Walter Junior liked to watch. With unease, he gazes around the warehouse, and lets out a sigh.

What did it matter? He was an overly qualified chemistry teacher with lung cancer who was forced to sell meth to make cash for his family.

His entire life was a fucking horror movie.

Jesse looks like he agrees with him as he looks around the place in disgust. "Yo, man, what horror movie did we crash-land in?"

To add onto the cliché of the moment, the junkie steps out of the shadows. "You the guys I'm supposed to be meeting with?" he asks. His voice echoes around the empty warehouse.

Jesse decides to be obstinate. "Yo, who were you expecting?" he asks sarcastically. "The entire cast of Skins?"

Walt elbows him in the ribs, not caring if it hurts his partner. "Yeah. Tuco sent us." He tries to look intimidating, but as Jesse once pointed out during one of their cooking sessions that "the only way you could be more shit-ass scary, Mr. White, is if you put on sunglasses, buff up and say 'I'll be back.'"

He'd donned the sunglasses, but that was all, much to Jesse's disappointment.

The junkie rolls his eyes, staggering slightly. Walt's eyes flicker to his pocket, and when there's no pistol-shaped lump, he relaxes. "That's great," the junkie says sarcastically. "Fantastic."

"We're here to get the money you owe Tuco," Walt continues, not at all liking where this was going.

"He says two grand or he'll stop floating you meth, man," Jesse interrupts, and Walt almost groans in frustration. Didn't Jesse ever know when to shut up? Was it physically impossible for the man to use his brain. Stupid, ignorant junkie, he thinks, not sure which man he's referring to.

Suddenly, the junkie pulls out a pistol, the aim wavering between both of them. Walt's heart stops, because this is just too much. Honestly.

He's killed a man, scrubbed human entrails off of hardwood floors, and cooked methamphetamine, but this was what would kill him?

Really?

Jesse laughs nervously. "Don't do anything you'll regret, man," he says shakily, and the junkie laughs before aiming the gun directly at Jesse's heart. Jesse turns pale. Walt's heart thuds to a stop.

Maybe Walt's life was a horror movie after all.

"Look," he says in a tone that's hopefully calm and placating. "Don't do anything hasty. We'll...we can give you extra meth. Just don't—" Whatever else Walt had been planning on saying is cut off by a loud bang, and Jesse collapses, bleeding profusely on the floor of the warehouse.

Walt stands there, blinking stupidly for a few seconds before he realizes two things.

One: the junkie had run away like a scared little pussy.

Two: the junkie had shot Jesse.

His mind plays that in a loop for a while, like a broken recording tape.

Jesse had gotten shot.

Jesse had gotten shot.

Jesse "Yo bitch!" Pinkman, his young partner-slash-ex-student that annoyed the hell out of him, had gotten shot on his watch.

Shit.

He finds himself kneeling on the floor next to Jesse, who's writhing and panicking on the dirty floor with blood gushing out of a small hole that probably hit a lung or something else equally important, with no memory of getting there.

Shit shitshitshit, he thinks.

Walter Hartwell White had faced a lot of problems in his seven months of drug dealing.

But none of them scared him quite as much as this did.

(*) (*)

If this didn't convince Jesse that the world hated him, nothing would.

Was this a punishment, he wonders, for following Mr. White off into the sunset on his drug-selling fantasies? Had God somehow decided that his life wasn't worth enough? Like, "nah, Jesse hasn't suffered enough, let's have some crackhead end his life"?

Bitch, please, he thinks. He's suffered, all right. He's suffered through Aunt Ginny dying from cancer, her house being sold out from under him, being beaten to an inch of his life by a druggie kingpin, and now this, taking a bullet at the hands of a crackhead.

First, it hadn't even hurt that much. There was just silence everywhere, then pain began to flair, spiraling outward to every inch and crevice of his body. He'd felt his knees give way, and then had found himself writhing on the floor.

He hears the pussy run away and then more silence.

Then, Mr. White appears. He's hovering over him, fingers fluttering with uncharacteristic uncertainty. His face's drawn and pale, mouth stammering with words Jesse couldn't hear.

Usually he tunes out Mr. White's droning and yelling. Now he'd give anything to hear it if his chemistry teacher's voice would make the pain go away.

Then sound reappears as quickly as someone flicking on a switch.

"Hang on, hang on," Mr. White mutters, fumbling for his phone—the prepaid one—so he can dial 911. "Shit. Shit shitshitshit."

It was just like his partner to state the obvious, Jesse thinks hysterically. To give pointless orders. It's an issue of control, and Mr. White likes control. No, correction: both he and his fucking alter ego, the great and powerful Heisenburg, love control. They relish the crap. But Mr. White doesn't look in control.

He looks afraid.

"Jesse!" He tunes back to reality to find Mr. White shaking him, and all Jesse can think of is how cold Mr. White's hands are. "Christ...stay with me! Ambulances are on their way, okay? You will be fine."

"Bad liar, Mr. White," he croaks, hating the feel of blood coming out of him. His breaths grow shorter. Jesse chokes back a laugh.

"What's so funny?" Walt asks, adding pressure to the wound.

"I've been in the business for seven years, haven't gotten hurt once. Seven months with you and I'm bleeding out in a fucking warehouse." He takes a harsh breath. "Yo, man, what kind of world is this?"

Mr. White doesn't say anything—or maybe he can't. Under different circumstances, Jesse might've smiled.

He'd rendered the great Heisenburg speechless. His life was now complete.

"Don't die," his partner says, if not growls, and Jesse coughs, spitting up blood onto Mr. White's black sweatshirt, finding the situation hysterical.

No 'you'll be fine.'

No 'just hang on.'

Not even a 'help is on the way.'

But a 'don't die', which Mr. White says like he's a four-star general ordering his troops in Afghanistan. Like Jesse has a fucking choice in the matter.

"Sorry," he finds himself saying. "Can't..."

"Yes you can," Mr. White urges. "You can." Damnit, his voice even cracks a little. He must really be close to dying by now.

"Can't," he insists, and although he tries (damn, how he tries) he can't stay awake and finds himself blissfully heading towards unconsciousness.

(*) (*)

As soon as Walter White sees that Jesse is heading towards unconsciousness, he panics. Really, really panics, because Jesse isn't supposed to die, damnit! He should be dying, not Jesse. Jesse was barely out of his twenties.

He didn't deserve this.

"Stay awake, Jesse," he practically commands the younger man, putting even more pressure on the wound than should be physically possible. He has no idea where all this adrenaline is coming from.

Jesse's eyes open reluctantly. "Mr. White?" he croaks.

"Yeah, Jesse?" Walt replies quietly.

"M'really tired," Jesse answers, his words slurring together. His eyes flutter shut again.

"No!" Walt suddenly yells, squeezing his partner's wrist a little tighter. Jesse's eyes groggily open, and Walt breathes out a sigh of relief, his heart rate slowing down. "Look, Jesse, you have to stay awake or you'll…" Walt pauses, not wanting to go there. "Um...They'll be coming for us anytime now, we just have to wait. Okay? Jesse?"

Jesse shakes his head, a minuscule moment that tugs at his heart, and closes his eyes again.

But this time, it doesn't matter how many times Walt calls his name, he doesn't wake up. Walt pats at his face, shakes him hard. He doesn't dare shake Jesse too hard and then he tries to think, to find a way out. But to move Jesse might be to lose him, and that is a risk Walt will not take—he refuses to take that chance.

Because despite his grumbling about his partner's annoying, wannabe badass behavior, they were still partners.

Walt did not want to lose Jesse.

Walt will not lose Jesse.

And yet, sitting in the cold and damp and fucking cliché warehouse, Walt is fairly certain that's exactly what will happen.

With the sirens echoing in the distance, Jesse bleeding out, and him maintaining a full pressure on the wound, Walt wonders why his life is like such a horror movie.


End file.
